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Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Consider Jonah’s inner thoughts throughout the novel.

• Do these glimpses into his thinking make him a more sympathetic or less sympathetic character? (topic sentence)
• Choose at least 3 specific examples from the novel and use them to support your position on Jonah’s character.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, describe what these key points reveal about Jonah’s character.

2. The novel includes time travel and futuristic ideas.

• How do the science fiction details, items, and theories build one of the novel’s central themes (Who Am I?, Trusting Oneself and Others, or Newfound Truths Versus Long-Standing Beliefs)? (topic sentence)
• Choose 1 theme to focus on. Include at least 3 specific examples from the book and reasoning about how the examples build that theme.